All Over :(

The musical finished up this weekend. I am really sad now because I have grown so close with the people in the cast. I used to see them every day after school for at least a couple hours and now I barely ever see them. They are such great people and we all have been there for each other through the whole musical process. Every one of them are amazing people and I do not think we have had any drama or conflict between any of us. Of course we get annoyd but we still love be hang out with each other. I will be super sad when the seniors actually leave. I wont be in any more productions with them since they are going off to bigger and better things next year.

This past week was really hectic. My family has to move out of the house this week and I was busy trying to get school work done and go to every minute of musical. We had our performance this past weekend and they all went really well. I felt proud of every one of them. I now have a virus, probably just from everything going on. I started to have a sore throat on the Saturday performances. I went to the doctors and found out that I somehow have swimmers ears and an inflamed throat. I feel so drained from the musical and packing and trying to still have fun and enjoy the friends I have from musical all at the same time. It has been worth it though. I think that every one in the cast did an amazing job and really prooved they deserved their role. I am going to miss performing the musical because it is so much fun. My mom got a DVD of the performance so at least I can relive the experience. So many people were so nice for coming. Some people even came more than one night and really showed all of us in the cast how much they appreciated our performance. Even though it was a lot of hard work I am going to miss going to practice every day and hanging out with the people I got to know on a deeper level. Hopefully lots of us will be in the same activities next year so we can keep our amazing relationships going. I think we all need to have a musical get together and stay in touch over the summer.

Only the beginning...

The musical performance days have started! Yesterday we got all day of school off to perform the previews for school and do our first complete performance for some senior citizens. The previews went completely better than I had expected. You kind of think that the kids in highschool might be a tough audience but most of them enjoyed the little preview performance and were laughing and getting all the funny parts.

The previews each lasted for thirty minutes (give or take) and we all got to say our intros but then only four people got to sing their song. There just wasn't that much time and we didn't want to give away the whole show. I really think that this year so many people will want to come to watch this musical because they know they actually will enjoy it. And it wont just be to go see their friend(s).

After the previews the chorus got to leave but the principals had to stay to review parts in the show that were recently changed and needed work on to remember correctly. We really did not want to be there because we wanted as much time as we could to mess around and go to lunch, but we all knew that we needed that review. Most of the principals ended up going to Panera for lunch...which was very delicious. We got back at noon and got ready for the senior citizen show. They started coming in an hour and a half early. They were really early so we moved our start time to twenty minutes earlier. The show went really well I thought. The parts we did review...we messed up on, but it was not terrible and it gives us something to improve. It seemed a little weird to say/do some of the things in the show for older people because they might not take to it as easily. There were parts though that younger people would not get that they laughed at right away. It was completely a different show and all of them were so accepting and pleased when we met them after the show.

Then all the principals got time off before five to go do what we pleased. Most of us took a delightful trip to fruitzen. I was upset though because I left my card at home that day :( After that, all of the group pretty much went to target to get gifts for their "secret" buddy. Mostly everyone got cheap little random gifts. Later when we were in practice we had a little session where you guessed who had you and then that person would say some good things about you, the the circle would say things about you too if they wanted. It turned in to a twenty minute things for each person. We only have a two hour practice scheduled so we went way over and eventually I just had to leave.

The show has been going great and I cannot wait until tonight to really make it even better. I have gained so many friends through this entire process and I am soo happy that I decided to try out for the musical this year. Four more performances to go!!!

...whoa

I just realized today that next week is show week. I am going to be soo swamped and have to make up school over top of the school that I am already trying to make up. It is exciting to think that everything we have been working on is going to pay off next week. Pretty much the entire week is going to be filled with the musical.

I have made up most of my test that I think I needed to make up. But I am sure that there are plenty that I have missed and did not know that I had. So I will be scrambling just to make up those tests. Somehow I will have to make them up around the busy musical next week. I might just wait until the week after the musical then I can stay after school and use my sixth hour to make everything up. But right now doing this is kind of hard with having musical everyday after school until at least six if not longer. Then the sixth hour I do have off every other day I am currently practicing my solo ensemble pieces with the piano player from our school.

There is just soo much to get done and it is starting to get overwhelming, but I am so excited at the same time for the musical that it kind of balances the worry I have over the make-up work for school and trying to pack in time for moving out. I kind of like packing sometimes anyway though because I run into things that I forgot I had or that bring up old memories. It also feels good to clean out a lot of things from my entire random collection of stuff. I feel like I am always trying to save things just in case I will need them in the future, but the reality is that it takes up so much room and I probably will never remember I even have it. I really cannot wait to get into my moms new house. I am going to get to just make everything new and a change from what it has been.

Soon the musical will come up and be over with. Then I will probably feel bored and wont know what to do so I am just going to live in the moment of excitement and fury.

Chorus Line Camp :)

This past weekend we had our five hour rehearsal scheduled with our choreographer who got back in town. We all got there and it always feels kind of weird when you practice on a weekend or not a school day. We had the chorus there for the first couple hours, which flew by very fast. I have never worked on something and had time fly that quickly. Then the chorus got to leave and we worked on principal work and pretty much just went through the show. Our director used this time to start pulling each of us out to work individually on our parts. After about another hour we were all done with the principal work and were ready to go. We all wanted to leave but not even half of us had done our work with our director. Soon we had the idea to just do it next week during night rehearsals instead of waiting till our time then. We were so happy when he let us do that because we thought he might not like the idea very much. I was so happy to leave because fruitzen was open that day. Pretty much all of us left and got snow cones... which were amazing. It was the best rehearsal I have ever been to. Probably because it was scheduled to go until six and we pretty much got out of there a little more than two hours early. And then on top of that fruitzen was open, which everyone loves to go to so we were all in a wonderful mood. It is amazing how much you bond with the musical people. I have been around them every day for pretty much 4 hours at least. And I am not quite fed up with them, but I am sure that time has yet to come.

The tech crew came in the other day and did all the lighting. It is soo cool and really makes the show. Now I feel like it does not feel right when the lighting is not on. This week orchestra is joining us and will make for another challenge but it should be really good and start to really feel like a legit show. This rehearsal tonight shall be another frustrating one. I hope these next two weeks everything will really come together and start to be a really amazing show. I want it to be soo good because I know we have the potential for it to be that way.

Packing

My family only has a little over a week left (nine days actually) to pack up everything and get it out of our house so the people who bought it can move in. It is a lot of work, especially when you have to put things in boxes that do not really fit together.

So far all I have attempted are books and papers, which do not really frustrate me that much so I can pretty much just throw them in a box and they will fit pretty nicely. I have musical every week day though from now till next Saturday. That is exactly all the time we have until we have to be out of the house, so I really do not know when I am going to be able to pack up a lot of my stuff. I will maybe have to hardcore pack this weekend, but knowing me I will get off subject and want to go do something else.

My dad and little brother have been furiously packing though. There are so many boxes in the front room of our house. I feel like they have only made a dent in what we have to pack though, but at least it is going somewhere. My mom is out of town this week because she is visiting her sister/my aunt for the week and babysitting her kids while they are on their spring break. If she were here she would be freaking out and worrying about packing all the time because that is just the way she is. I am glad my brother and dad packed this weekend because it will make my mom feel a lot better. Hopefully I can get a bigger dent in my room soon, or else she will turn her worrying to me and start to bother me about it. Then if I do not get to it she will just start doing whatever kind of packing she wants in my room. I think the best would be for me to pack my things so I know where they all are and I wont be confused later. That way I can also clean and get rid of things in the same process and then we do not have to take that stuff with us.

Well hopefully we get the house all packed up in time, and I can find some time really soon to get the packing done that I need to get done. It is starting to be more of a reality that we are actually moving now, since things are starting to empty out and the pile of boxes in the front room are growing.

Ze musicale

Our musical this year is A Chorus Line! I personally had never heard of it before. But now I am really getting to know it up close and personal. We have been practicing pretty much every day after school. Especially the principals... I made the part of Diana Morales.

Rehearsals are starting to become pretty intense. The week after we found out the results we had a week long dance session pretty much. All the dances were learned for the musical in this week since our choreographer was in town from New York. She came in and taught the opening number and the closing with all of the chorus. Then with just the principals she taught the numbers inbetween and the individual parts of choreography. We have been working on our parts pretty intensely especially the numbers with all the chorus in them. Working on those have started to get a little boring since we have done them sooo many times.

My favorite time is when there are just principals there. The dance numbers are not as heavy and it is a little easier to stay interested though I do like to mess around and have fun. I can be focused but I hate being focused when someone tells me to be. I can work just as hard when I am having fun. I think when it all starts coming together it will be more exciting to perform our parts. This musical is going to be so fun to do though. I really can not wait until performance week when my life will be surrounded by this musical. It will be hard to keep up with school work but it is going to be so much fun just hanging with the cast all day.

The last two weeks are going to be pure madness. We have practices from 3-6 and then 6:30-9. The parents are going to bring us dinner every night in the thirty minutes we have. We are not allowed to even leave the school during that time. Somehow I am going to have to get my homework done during those nights. Hopefully I can make it through and not really have terrible grades at the end. I already am still trying to make-up work from missing days around spring break. I really hope I wont have another bad term like I did winter term. Overall though this musical should be worth all the hard work. I think it is a great cast with lots of talent and it should be an amazing show.

Avenue Q!

Alongside show choir I've been involved in the speech team. The past years have not been quite as interesting, but this year we got a new theatre director. The whole program has been turned around, and our director has devoted a lot of his time to it.

I was not even interested in trying out for the speech team, but one of my good friends convinced me since they needed some girls. I tried out and I was really hoping for a singing part, since that is what I enjoy doing out of all the options on the team. I ended up getting a part in the Avenue Q musical theatre group. The friend that convinced me to try out said my part of Kate, was the part that a lot of the girls wanted to get. I was so excited and could not wait until practices started. The group had six of us and I knew everyone pretty well from show choir. The chemistry I have with all of them is great.

As we began learning our parts, I really tried to embrace who my character was. I also tried to get myself more familiar with the entire musical itself. I found the character named Lucy the Slut. As soon as I listened to her part, I desired to perform it! The voice range is perfect for me, and it is always fun to act a little slutty for a role. I wished so much that she was in the section of the musical that we performed. Now I can only dream of what it could be.

Practices started slow, getting everything together. Everyone clicked really well and that created a lot of talking and distractions during practice. Things still were accomplished though and I am really excited to perform it. These last rehearsals are more focused and I love being able to create and put input into the play itself, rather than just having everything told to you. Recently we had a man come in to help us on our technique of singing. Most of the people were unable to thoroughly sing because they had lost their voice to show choir the night before. I did not scream full out the night before...smart. When I sang my part, the man told me that he did not even have anything to say to me because it was great. That was probably the cherry on top to this entire experience so far. Tomorrow we have a performance to our friends and family at home that I can not wait to show everyone. Then this weekend we have a competition that I am really hoping we do well in because I would like to move on to the next level.

There are speech t-shirts that are supposed to be really cool. I can not wait to wear it in a couple days. Tight t-shirts just really make everything feel legit. This year in speech has really been a great stop and I do not want it to end.